Oxford City - Council Bathroom Adaptations

Waiting for an internal review by Oxford City Council of their handling of this request.

Dear Oxford City Council,

1. in the past five years how many bathroom adaptions into accessible shower rooms have Oxford City Council performed / funded both in the private sector and council owned properties?
2. Please provide the cost of each individual adaption listed above.
3. Please provide the names of all contractors and sub contractors that were awarded each individual contract to perform adaption listed in (1) above.

Yours faithfully,

Michael Collins

freedomofinformation, Oxford City Council

Dear Mr Collins,

Thank you for your email below. We received your request on 29th March 2022, and you will be sent a response within 20 working days (of receipt) in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000/ Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR), subject to the information not being exempt or containing reference to a third party.

Yours sincerely,

Joyce Fagan
Information Governance Requests Officer

Joyce Fagan | Information Governance Requests Officer | Oxford City Council | Law and Governance | St. Aldate's Chambers | Oxford | OX1 1DS

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Dear Oxford City Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Oxford City - Council Bathroom Adaptations'.

You have not replied to my FOI request. You should have replied by 28 April 2022.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/o...

Yours faithfully,

Michael Collins

freedomofinformation, Oxford City Council

Dear Mr Collins,

Thank you for your email

This has been forwarded to the relevant person, who is looking at your internal review request, and will responding to you when the review has been conducted in full.

Kind regards

Freedom of Information

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freedomofinformation, Oxford City Council

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Collins,

 

 

I am writing in response to your request for an Internal Review of your
Freedom of Information request regarding Private and Council Bathroom
Adaptations, sent to us on 29th March which I have been asked to look into
by the Head of Law and Governance, Susan Sale.

 

Having looked into the matter thoroughly I have made the following
observations -

 

The private adaptions information was supplied relatively easily, but the
Contractor for the council homes, Oxford Direct Services (ODS) was not
able to answer the request.

 

However, there was a delay in communication between ODS and the Freedom of
Information officer at the time regarding this, leading to a delay in
communication to you, and for this, I apologise.

 

I am in a position to answer your query now with the data that we have and
explain the time constraint for the limited data we can supply form Oxford
Direct Services.

 

Private Sector Homes

 

1.         in the past five years how many bathroom adaptions into
accessible shower rooms have Oxford City Council performed / funded both
in the private sector and council owned properties?

In the properties that were not Council properties we undertook the
following number of bathroom adaptations

17-18  - 52

18-19  - 110

19-20  - 80

20-21  - 57

21-22  - 24

 

2.         Please provide the cost of each individual adaption listed
above.

In the properties that were not Council properties the average cost was
(Please note each adaptation is different as based on client needs)

17-18  - £5,839

18-19  - £5,842

19-20  - £4,918 (Bathroom works were added to a framework form this year
onwards – hence reduction in costs)

20-21  - £4,050

21-22  - £4,612

 

3. Please provide the names of all contractors and sub contractors that
were awarded each individual contract to perform adaption listed in (1)
above.

 

This is sensitive data regarding which contractor each client used for
each job, since identifying contractors might mean that individual
households could potentially be identified. For this reason, I consider
that Section 40 exemption to the Act to have been engaged, regarding the
release of information that could identify private individuals.

However, since 19/20 we have a published bathroom framework which the
client can use and there are 5 contractors on this framework

 

Council owned homes

 

The question related to adaptions in accessible shower rooms – I have
taken that to mean works to install level access showers.

 

I have provided (attached) details of the works which were carried out
over the last twelve months – I do not have details of work prior to this
date which is accessible, see below.

 

Section 12 – Exceeding Time limit to supply data

 

Section 12 of the Act makes provision for public authorities to refuse
requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed
the appropriate limit, which for local government is set at £450. This
represents the estimated cost of one person spending 2.5 working days
(18.5 hours) in determining whether the department holds the information,
locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

 

We receive a total of approx. 600 orders a year – so over a 5 year period
that would be 3,000 orders

 

We would have to look at each order folder to determine what work was
required and determine if it related to the work described in the FOI
request. We would then need to determine the value of the work charged and
record it on  a spread sheet. The orders are captured on two IT schemes,
one which is in the process of being archived and we would also need to
access manual archived folders for a lot of the earlier jobs

 

I estimate the following work would be required

 

3,0000 records

 

600 on current IT system – average time 6 mins per job = 3,600

1,800 on old IT system – average time 8 mins per job = 14,000

600 archive folder – average time  12 mins per job = 7,200

 

Total mins = 24,800 mins / 60 = 413 hrs work

 

We therefore estimate that it will take the Council in excess of 2.5
working days to determine appropriate material and extract the information
in reference to your request, and for that reason I consider that the
Section 12 exemption of the Freedom of Information Act to be engaged.

 

This concludes the Internal Review of the handling of this request. Once
again, I would like to apologise for the time it has taken to respond to
you in this matter.

 

Kind regards

 

 

Sal Bartlett | Information Governance Administrator| Law & Governance |
SA1.2B | Oxford City Council | St Aldates Chambers | St Aldates | Oxford |
OX1 1DS |

For any Data Protection queries please send the email directly to the
[1][email address] mailbox

 

 

 

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Michael Collins

Dear freedomofinformation,

Thank you for your response.

Unfortunately the way you have presented the information is somewhat confusing.

Can you provide an explanation as to why you easily have access to information concerning the private sector homes but not the council homes?

I believe you have misused Section 40 exemption of the FOI Act. Based on the information you have provided there is absolutely no justification to use that exemption.

You then wrote: "However, since 19/20 we have a published bathroom framework which the client can use and there are 5 contractors on this framework". I have no idea what you are referring to? What is the "bathroom framework" and where can I find it? what are the names of the 5 contractors you refer to? If you are now publishing the names of the contractors, why does this not violate Section 40 of the FOI act which you have quoted and used to deny me access to information?

You wrote: "We receive a total of approx. 600 orders a year – so over a 5 year period that would be 3,000 orders". I am sorry but I have no idea what you are referring to when you say that you receive approx. 600 orders a year? 600 orders of what....?

Please provide details of your current IT system used to log this data and the date from when it was implemented.

Please provide details of your legacy IT system.

I find it quite extraordinary that you do not have readily available access to this data? I fail to see how you can plan and budget for such work in the future if you do not know what the numbers are?

Yours sincerely,

Michael Collins

Michael Collins

Dear Oxford City Council,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Oxford City Council's handling of my FOI request 'Oxford City - Council Bathroom Adaptations'.

I am still waiting for reply. You have had more than twenty working days and you have now failed your legal obligation.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/o...

Yours faithfully,

Michael Collins